


If You Die, I'll Kill You

by meanoldauthor



Series: Mean Old Lady [13]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, Post-Game(s), Suicide Attempt, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 09:57:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7043554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meanoldauthor/pseuds/meanoldauthor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can lose everything you lived for, and you can lose someone without knowing you needed them.  All you can hope for is holding on somewhere in between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Die, I'll Kill You

Adal took a deep breath, hissing in through clenched teeth. Screw it, she was running out of paper. “Mind if I smoke?” she said, lighter already open.

“Hn.” Ulysses didn’t even glance over.

She puffed at the lumpy little cigarette, tobacco shreds leaking out of a tear in the side. “Really? Thought you’d be against chems no matter the stripe.”

It took him a moment to react, staring over the ledge into the Divide. “Your poisons. Not mine.”

“Yeah, well, not gonna blow it at you or anything. Always thought that was a shitty thing to do.” She kept her lighter in hand, in case her smoke went out. “So, uh, that’s all I got on Vegas, right now. Shit’s quiet.”

He nodded, beside her, looking out over the chasm. She made a face and reached out to smack him on the arm for his attention, but thought better of it. “Yeah, so…Usually we’d be neck deep in an argument about now.”

“Nothing more to add,” she said, not facing her completely.

“You feeling ok? Rad sickness’ll catch you fast in this place,” she said. “Not that you don’t know that, but you were down in the Mile today. That’ll tear you up as bad as the marked men.”

“No concern of yours, courier,” he said, attention on the Divide.

She shrugged, scanning the wreckage for whatever might have caught his eye. “That big Tunneler nest still active?”

“No more than the rest.”

“You were worried about it a while ago, is why I ask.” Silence. “What kinda hell’d that be, them outgrowing this place.” Adal drew the cigarette down, keeping herself to herself when he didn’t reply. When it got too short to hold, she stubbed it out in the dirt and flicked the end into the fire behind them. “See you ‘round, then. Bring you more news in a few days.”

A faint nod as she brushed dust from her clothes. “Something I said?” she asked, and cringed at herself.

Ulysses turned, finally, facing her. “Be here,” he said.

“Right.” She raised a hand in farewell, headed back towards the pass, wondering what the hell she’d done.

—

It took longer than she wanted to find time to return to the Divide. Ulysses was dozing further back from the ledge, stirring awake as she kicked up rocks on the trail. “Hey, man. Sorry on the long wait, things kind of blew up with the caravans.”

He rubbed at his eyes, grimacing. “Knew their terms would change.”

“Aw, not the ‘told-you-so’ game, not after the week I’ve had,” she said, dropping her pack beside him. “Can I at least get somethin’ cooking?”

He gestured to the fire pit, and she frowned. “Let it go out? Hell, I didn’t bring anything that’ll burn…” He gave it a disinterested look, and she made a face. “Come on. Stretch your legs, help me dig out some firewood down there.”

He looked away, considering. As she was about to step away, he sighed, rolling to his feet. Adal bit back her relief, letting him catch up. He walked beside her on the path to the silo, using his staff light a walking stick, and she measured him up from the corner of her eye. His face looked hollow, the scrub of a beard starting past the edges of his mask. “Honestly, you feeling alright? Eating ok?”

“Can fend for myself, courier.”

“I know you can, man,” she said, holding up her hands. She grabbed the wheel on the door to the complex. “Hard to hold up _both_ ends’v a conversation, though. Start asking stupid questions when I run outta news.”

“Then what news?” he said, exasperated.

She sighed and started in, about traders and taxes and routes. He wasn’t listening, watching the ruins, but she kept on for the sake of filling the silence.

—

He wasn’t there, on her next visit. A few embers clung to the planks in the fire, and she coaxed them back to life. Adal let out a long breath through her nose, trying not to worry. He went into the ruins alone, sometimes, though he never spent long. He was a weird, lonely guy, probably the most fun he had in a day was whacking marked men on the head with his staff.

She dug the pot out of her pack, balancing it on a rock near the flames. He’d gone after a Deathclaw with nothing but the stupid thing on her last trip, and her rushing to drop it with her rifle before it took his head off. The worry twisted harder in her gut, and she nearly burned her hand on the edge of the pot, dropping in a handful of vegetables. That kind of shit was reckless, even for him.

“Done following you through this place,” she muttered, setting the pot aside for later. She stood, checking her weapons were at hand. “Last goddamn time, I swear. If it was that Tunneler nest’s been bothering you…”

The sound came first, a blast that made her duck instinctively. It went on, cracking and rumbling as the vibration came up through her feet. Over the lip of the chasm, she watched smoke and debris rise skyward, from deep in the Divide.

He hadn’t… “Goddamn you, Ulysses.” She started to run.

—

He had shown her shortcuts through the ruins, tunnels and paths to odd corners of the Divide. She pounded along them, breath echoing in a set of sewer tunnels. They were usually filthy with Tunnelers, but empty now; driven to ground by the blast, maybe, or caught in it…

She came out in an office building, three floors up, giving her a wide view of the wreckage. Below, the Cave of the Abaddon was gone, a crater, the entire building that made up the top of it reduced to rubble. She stared at where it had been a long moment, taking in the void. He had been in it, she knew he had—the Tunnelers had been regrouping there, breeding; he would have gone in to make them cluster and then—

“You son of a bitch!” she screamed. Her voice echoed off the buildings, coming back to her harsh and raw. “Son of a bitch! You selfish, idiotic…” Adal knotted her fists into her hair, teeth clenched enough to hurt. “ _How could you do this!?_ ”

Her chest ached as she stepped out of the window, the tilted side of the building making an easy road down. Maybe he had had some sense. Maybe he had triggered the blast from elsewhere. _Maybe, maybe_ , she thought, thinking of looking down on the Divide as it settled in the new-formed chasm, years, years ago… 

“Ulysses?” She stepped cautiously under arcs of twisted metal, picking up a spar of wood to probe for sinkholes. “Are you— Please be out here.” She shut her eyes on the destruction, heartsick. Her feet dragged through the dust. “God, why couldn’t you…” There was a sound, rubble shifting. Her hand went to her gun, waiting for a ghoul or Tunneler to surface. She spotted movement in the debris and crept forward, trying to see. “Oh, god, Ulysses…”

A hand was visible, a dark one, half buried in bits of debris. The noise of the wreckage shifting disappeared, and her feet didn’t touch the ground as she approached. She couldn’t draw a breath. He—

The hand moved, knocking aside some of the rubble.

“You bastard!” The world snapped back. She vaulted onto the broken concrete, levering away the smaller pieces. He was under there, all right, and she cringed at the blood that coated the stone. He was half tucked under a shelf between floors, partly sheltered. “What do you call this? You know how lucky you are I was up there?” He stirred at the sound of her voice, eyes trying to open. “Huh? Fucking disappear then—don’t you pass out on me!” She slapped him hard over his breathing mask, and he jerked away, giving her an outraged look. “Oh, come on, that is _not_ the worst thing that’s happened to you today. Where’s this blood from?”

His legs hadn’t been as lucky, caught outside the sheltered area. Blood was seeping from one, bent at an unnatural angle. “Smell…will draw more,” he grunted. “Leave. Run.”

“Oh, the _smell?_ That’s what you’re worried about? I ain’t going anywhere.” Drawing a knife from under her coat, she sliced through the leg of his pants. She hissed at the mess under it, bones poking out from under the skin. She nearly dumped her pack, trying to dig out a syringe. “You gave up your decision-making privileges when you thought this was a good idea,” she said, waving at the crater. “I got a Stimpak and some Med-X here. Enough to get you up.”

He tried to grab her wrists as she leaned close, reaching for his arm. She growled and twisted free, stabbing the first into his bicep. “Let go. Ulysses, goddamn it—You’re set about this being my town, aren’t you?” She grabbed a fistful of his shirt, shaking him. “Right, then I own this fucking place, and I _did not give you permission to die here._ ” He flinched, and she gave his chest a prod. “Ribs, too? God, what else?”

“Enough,” he said. His grip was weak, and his hand cold on her skin. “Courier. You know…the why of it. Guessed, by now…”

“Yeah, yeah.” She put a hand on his. “You want the Med-X too, or not?” He shook his head, and drew a thin breath to speak. “You’ll change your mind,” she said, pocketing it as she cut him off. She pulled his hand free and started to stand, drawing his arm across her shoulders. “Get up. You left a couple buildings intact, _maybe._ We can hole up there.”

The remains of an apartment complex loomed, back the way she had come. He grunted as she hauled him upright, leaning hard on her. She had to square her shoulders against his weight, getting her free hand around his waist.

“First, you start combing the Mile for marked men,” she said. “On their territory. I just think you’re getting bored on that ledge.” He had to shuffle along on his good leg, saying nothing and breathing hard. “Then there’s you hunting Deathclaws. With just that damn stick of yours.” She nearly had to pick him up to get over a sewer pipe, half-exposed. “And maybe,” she panted, “you got a better chance than most of beating one of those lizards to death, but I ain't putting money on it.”

“Wasting your time,” he grated. She looked up. His face was ashen.

“Then fall right over here, ain’t gonna stop you,” Adal said. “I’ll leave you to get eaten by whatever beastie wanders past, how’s that sound?”

He grunted. If it was meant to be intelligible, she ignored it. “In here. C’mon,” she said, steering him through a ruined hall, the building’s outer walls gone. “And then. Half the time I show up, you’re in the ruins somewhere. Your eyes are nearly glow the dark, man.” She kicked at a door, letting it swing open. The room inside was small, the remains of a bedroom with a rotting mattress in the corner. “Good enough. Lay down.”

She had to help him down, face set with pain, every motion drawing a groan. She knelt beside him, catching her breath. “Med-X?”

Ulysses gave her a sour look, then nodded. She tried no to seem too smug as she jabbed it into his arm. He tried to say something, too muffled to hear. “Here. Dying of radiation’s the least of your problems now.” He got a hand around her arm, but she was faster, slipping off the strap and setting it aside. Blood ran from his nose, and a smear of it was on her wrist, from his…ears? Shit. “What was that?”

“Haven’t…asked for your help, Courier,” he said, voice still ragged.

“No, you never did,” she said, sliding down to check his leg. There was a ratty blanket on the mattress, and she packed it against the wounds. “Not the kind to. I’d know.” Blood seeped trough the blanket, and she heard him bite down a grunt as she pressed against it. “Shit, this is bad. I’ve got another stim, but that won’t do much until the bone’s set. And in case you didn’t notice, you just blew up the nearest Auto-Doc, and the path to the next one on.” She stood, stabbing a finger at him. “Stay put. I’ll try and hunt something up, and godssakes if you do something stupid I’ll break the other one.”

She shut the door behind her, leaning on it briefly. “Ornery son of a…” There was a cache nearby, if she remembered right, somewhere they’d both used. Adal brought her rifle down, leaning out into the open to watch for movement. It was growing dark, and while the Tunnelers would never show above ground, marked men had come to inspect the blast. She kept a hand to the wall, noting a silhouette on top of the wreckage. At least one, but they traveled in groups. She kept her head on a swivel, biting back a curse as it made her miss her footing, sending a stone clattering off.

She hunkered down, holding her breath. There was another noise around the corner ahead, answering. Shit. Shit shit shit. She pressed back against the wall, trying to hide. There was a scrape of a blade, and she forced every muscle in her body to be still. Even one shot would alert them. She was alone, unprepared, and with Ulysses waiting on her.

She could hear the rattle of its raw throat at each breath, and she tried to match it, long and slow and hiding her own beneath the sound. The sword scraped on dirt and rubble as she tensed, knuckles white on her rifle. But the breathing trailed off, growing fainter as the ghoul lost interest and wandered away, dragging that blade behind him. When he was far enough gone, she crept out from shelter, cutting across to the remains of a small shack, the flag markings on the side in blue. A footlocker was wedged inside, and she lifted the lid slowly, the hinges creaking.

She turned over the contents as fast as she could without rattling it. She checked in the corners for stimpaks, hissing to herself at taking them on an earlier trip. A brace, then. Some bottles, those’d do—

Adal jumped at the sound of a gun, whirling to face the blast area. A marked man was tumbling along a pile of rubble, snarling. One of the burlier ghouls followed as he fell, kicking at him when he caught n a ledge or scrambled for a handhold. She used the distraction to hurry back to their building, arms full and crouched low. Adal scanned the scene one last time as she opened the door, her back to it. She turned to enter, running nose-first into something that grunted and flinched away.

“NO.” She shoved him hard in the chest, and he toppled, bad leg giving out. “I am _done_ screwin’ around,” she hissed through her teeth. “There’s a dozen or more marked men out there, you shouldn’t even be conscious, and I have had it up to _here_.”

“I am not dying on a sickbed,” he spat, trying to sit up.

“You’re not dying at all!” She clicked her Pip-Boy light on, the light dazzling in the dimness. The dresser on the left of the door was intact, and she heaved it across the entrance. “Back on the bed. I’m setting that leg.”

“Door opens outwards,” he said, not moving. “That won’t stop them getting in.”

“Keeps you getting out,” she said, kneeling next to him and trying to figure out the straps on the brace. “God, how did you even stand? You sure you don’t want to be on the bed for this? It’ll hurt like hell.”

“Courier. Stop this. You know why—”

“Yeah, I know why.” She tossed his boot aside. “Makes me surprised you aren’t bleeding brahminshit.”

“Let me die with—”

“Gonna count to three. Hold still.”

“—resembling dignity in—”

“One.” She pulled hard on his ankle, watching most of the slivers of bone slip back under the skin. With her other hand, she clamped the brace over it, holding everything in position. “Honest-to-god doctor taught me that one. Proves you can’t trust ‘em, but look, you didn’t even get a chance to…” She stabbed the last stimpak into his leg, looked up. “Ulysses?”

His head had lolled to the side, chest still.

“Hey. Hey, hey, hey,” she said, scrambling up to put a hand to his face. “Hey. Ulysses, wake up. Wake up, man!” She brushed a few of the braids out of his face. She leaned in close, feeling his neck and trying to remember how to check for a pulse. “Come on. You’re not that bad. Come on. Son of a bitch, don’t do this.” She pressed an ear to his chest, holding her breath. She sagged against him, his heart beating slow but deliberate. “Don’t scare me like that,” she whispered, throat dry. He started to stir, drawing breath. His eyes opened and she pulled away, rocking back on her heels.

“Damn,” she said when he had focused on her. “I wanted to slap you again.”

He closed his eyes, breathing harshly. She caught his hand as he reached out, and gripped it hard. “Help me stand,” he said, voice faint.

She pushed him down with her free hand. “Done telling you this,” she said. “No. I’ve seen men dead of a helluva lot less. Right now, though, your big risk is _me_ killing you for fucking yourself up.”

“Worse ways to die.”

“You tried once,” she said. “Didn’t work out like you planned, huh?”

“Stubborn woman,” he muttered.

“That I am,” she said. Adal realized she was stroking the back of his hand with her thumb, and set it at his side. “If you’re really set on sitting up, I got a roll of tape for your chest. Get those ribs under control.”

He nodded, and she helped him slide back onto the mattress, leaning him up against the wall. His face was drawn, sickly under the off-color light. She saw him wince as she helped him shrug out of his duster. “What…do either of us gain from this?”

“You survive, to start,” she said. A hand had lingered on his shoulder, and she pulled it back as though he burned. “There’s no more Med-X, but I found some whiskey if you’re hurting.”

“Didn’t—” he stopped short as he bent forwards, letting her pull the bandoleer off over his head. “Didn’t answer me.”

“This is barely even a shirt any more,” she said. Quick work with the knife, and she balled it up, setting it aside. Looking back up, she busied herself with unpeeling the end of the tape.

He made a frustrated sound. “Courier. Asked you a question.”

“Can you lift your arms?” He didn’t move, eyes still on hers, slumped and sickly and defiant. “You get to live. Ain’t high on your priorities, right now, I know.” She picked up his arm so she could reach his torso, laying it across her shoulders. She slid closer to him, ignoring her leg pressed against his. “Wouldn’t miss our arguing?”

“Not likely.” He leaned forward, letting her get the tape around his back. Goddamn, but he had scars, old and new. She trailed a finger across one, unthinking, and he jumped.

“Sorry. I would. Sort of.” And muscle, too. She already knew he was strong, but… “Is this too tight?”

He _hmm_ ed, voice low. She worried he could feel her flush, inches from his skin, since it was _not the time_. “I got a problem,” she said, distracting herself.

“With…tape?” His brow was furrowed, breaths shallow.

“No.” Focus on her hands, Adal, damn it. “With yes men. _Do_ I have a problem with them, and only one of them’s a robot.” She tried to touch him as little as possible, but was nearly hugging him whenever she passed the roll from hand to hand. “Got people who call me a liar when I say the sky’s blue, then call me a two-timer when I agree it ain’t always.” She glanced up. His eyes were nearly closed, watching her, face lined in pain. “Can barely leave the Strip without someone tryin’ to put a knife in my back. Points for trying, yeah, but it’s still inconvenient.”

He resettled his arm, and she swallowed. “Lot of the people I could trust to level with me have moved on. Don’t grudge them that, they got lives. But I need…perspective, I guess, sometimes.” His hand was _right there,_ between her shoulders. She shifted, and his fingers brushed the back of her neck. Her train of thought derailed entirely.

“So…” She could nearly hear him turning it over as she tore the tape off the roll, pressing the end down. “You come to me.”

She felt his breath stir her hair, and pulled back. His hand stayed where it was. Hells bells, the first time they met, he hadn’t just wanted her dead, he’d wanted her to _suffer_. “We settled what was between us,” she said. She hoped so, anyway. “No agenda, anymore. Just…neutral, right. Not wishin’ death on each other, but you still call me on being an idiot. Help work stuff out.”

He didn’t blink. Why did he never blink? Adal stood, going back for the bottles in her pack. Her neck was still hot where his hand had been, and she rubbed at it. “It’s business,” she said briskly. “Vegas runs better when I get to bitch at someone with half a brain.”

He grunted a little. “Can see why,” he said, “some want you dead.”

“Yeah, well. Words’n I don’t get along.” Adal turned over the bottle in her hand, chewing the inside of her lip. Fuck it. She needed it.

Adal cracked the bottle and took a swig, trying to drown her nerves. “It’s not poison, and there’s enough to get you through to tomorrow,” she said, holding it out. He made a face, and she shrugged and had another nip. “Then you might as well get some rest, I ain’t moving you until it’s light and the marked men are gone. Still be a long, nasty walk to the Ashton silo. Y’know, unless you want to try going over the mess you left out there.”

“To an Auto-Doc,” he said. She sat next to him, staying slightly out of reach. He was silent a moment. “My road ended too long ago, Courier.” His voice was soft, and she watched him sidelong. “Ended here. Kept going, kept waiting for death to catch up. Thought you’d be it.”

“Figured that,” she said. She held out the bottle again, and he stared at it a moment before taking it. “Not just a Legion thing, is it? Wanting to die fighting?” Ulysses was silent as he offered the bottle back. She took it, hesitating to touch her lips where his had been. “Always thought it’d happen to me. Not for glory, though. Or war. Just me bein’ a dumbass and picking fights with people.”

“Won’t go quiet. Never wanted to.” He was watching her back, eyes weary. “Hard to kill, people like us.”

“Glad that’s so. I’d have missed…” Seeing the rubble, his hand, feeling she had been gut-shot. “Discussing policy.” Adal lifted the bottle in a toast before taking a shot. “To scary sons-of-bitches.” He nodded as she handed it over. She let herself breathe, resting back on the wall. “You really think I coulda done you in?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Think you couldn’t?”

“Christ on a crutch, you didn’t see me shaking?” She chuckled. “Might have shot myself if I pulled a gun.”

A small _huh_ , from him, the closest she’d ever heard to a laugh. She grinned, shifting to sit with a leg under her. “Nah, hell, keep it away from me. Why’d you think I smoke?” she said when he offered the whiskey back. He nodded, setting it beside him. Too soon, and too little for it to have hit her, but the taste of it made her feel bold. “Y’know…I got another problem. With you.”

“Hn.”

“You…” Damn it, no. He was seven kinds of crazy, and she another three for ever coming back here to see him. “Hermit act doesn’t suit you,” she said at last. “Understand why you stick around here, mostly. But you could do more. Do better, elsewhere.”

He turned away slightly. In the feeble light, it was hard to tell, but he seemed disappointed. “Then you don’t understand, Courier. Not fully.”

She rubbed her nose, hiding her face. “You should still be resting. We need to get you actual help before that leg starts to rot. _There’s_ an ugly death for you.”

He took her hand, accepting her touch as she helped him lay down. She tried to pull away as he laid back, but he didn’t let go. “Why did you come here?”

“Need someone around to tell me I’m crazy,” she said. “Returning the favor.”

He brushed a hand across her arm, and the goosebumps there. “'Business,'” he said.

That flush started creeping up again. “You had two sips man, that ain’t enough to make you start talking nonsense.”

“Heard you, under the rubble,” he said. “Your problem with me. Your voice…that wasn’t _business_.”

“Can we save the wrenching confessions for when you ain’t on death’s door?”

“Short on chances, then.”

“Son of a bitch, you aren’t gonna—” His hand was on her neck again, his fingers in her hair. She let him pull her down, his mouth dry and rough and tasting of whiskey. His other hand slid under her coat, searching for anything that wasn’t sinew or muscle and traveling far to find it. Her heart was racing when she let up, and she heard him draw up short and wince as his breathing grew rough.

Adal brushed a few locks of hair out of his face as she leaned close again. She avoided his mouth, placing her lips close to his ear. “You crazy bastard. I ain’t laying down with a man half-dead, body or soul.” She held his face with her free hand, stroking his cheek with her thumb. “I know what it is, something breaks in you. Faced it alone too long. Ain’t gonna leave you to suffer the same, even if it ain’t something I can fix.”

There was something hot and damp on his cheek, and she wiped it away. “You want something to hold to? I need you. Not Vegas. Not the Old World, or the lights, or the ghosts. _I_ need…” He was still exploring with his free hand, slowly, delicately, and her body didn’t hesitate to tell her what it needed. “I need someone who sees me as I am, won’t feed me a line, ain’t scared to call me fool.”

“So many things to shape us,” he murmured, lips brushing her ear. “How much stronger for it…”

“Stop that.” She pushed herself away, but he didn’t let her get far. “Prove to me. Wake up tomorrow, and we set you right. Then…”

“Do you know,” he said, one hand still caressing her neck, running through her hair. “How long it has been…?” Her lips parted, the other finding bare skin. A frisson ran over her, and she had to pull it away before she turned into a quivering wreck. “Hands on me that didn’t mean harm?”

“Oh,” she breathed, a long sigh. “I do,” she said pressing her lips to that hand before it wandered off again. She was nearly shaking, imagining it on her body, hardened with callous and strength but so carefully under control. She wanted to pull off the tape and the rest of his clothes and count the scars, exploring and feeling and tasting as he did the same to her, that voice saying her name—

She shuddered. “I do. But it’d be a hell of a walk tomorrow with the rest of your ribs broken.” She dragged his duster over, laying it across them both. Settling with her head on his shoulder, she carefully rested her arm across him. “Incentive.”

“Stubborn woman.”

“That I am,” she said, flicking out the light. He pulled her close.


End file.
